Tackling social media in the United Kingdom

london - The major internet companies must be prosecuted in the United Kingdom if they fail to remove illegal content from social media. That concludes a research committee that advises British Prime Minister Theresa May. This concerns racist, sexist and extremist material.

In this way, a halt must be called against the growing number of threats and intimidating messages on the internet. Companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google are now not responsible for the content on their sites, even if there are illegal things on it. The committee that came up with a report on Tuesday wants to change that and prevent abuse.

'The widespread use of social media has been the most important factor for accelerating and enabling intimidating behavior in recent years,' says the report. The scale of this poses a threat to democracy, says the committee.